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JPMorgan Fighting 10,000 Lawsuits

02-28-2011 • Lauren Tara, Thestreet.com

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- JPMorgan Chase (JPM_) is a defendant in more than 10,000 legal proceedings and may be $4.5 billion short of reserves needed to cover those costs in a worst-case scenario, the firm said in a regulatory filing on Monday. The New York-based bank's legal woes range from individual actions against JPMorgan Chase to class actions with "potentially millions" of litigants to "regulatory/government investigations." The suits include common law tort and contract claims, statutory antitrust claims, securities claims and consumer protection claims, the bank said in its 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. JPMorgan is the last of the four big U.S. banks to detail some of its exposure to litigation in its annual report. While the banks didn't say what their overall litigation reserves are, JPMorgan, Citigroup (C_), Bank of America (BAC_) and Wells Fargo (WFC_) outlined a potential $11.2 billion shortfall in litigation reserves altogether. Last week